Archivists Discover the World’s First Color Movie

See the Oldest Movie Filmed in Color

More than a century after it was made, archivists from the National Media Museum in the UK have discovered the world’s oldest motion picture filmed in color, from 1902. The film, made by inventor Edward Raymond Turner, features images of his pets and what archivists believe are his three children playing outside. What makes this cinematic unearthing so extraordinary is that, according to curator Michael Harvey, “It has not been tinted, it has not been hand-colored. It’s in natural color, photographed that way.” This is in contrast to Thomas Edison’s famous moving images of the Annabelle Serpentine Dance from 1895, known as the first hand-tinted movie. Harvey goes on to explain that the frames were shot through colored filters, unprecedented at the time.